Archives

All posts for the month April, 2011

Prior to completing the requested images I did a little research on Bracketing and after reading a couple on books I found the following remarks in The Digital Photography Book by Scott Kelby.

He makes the following points that people may find helpful.

Bracketing can be used in tricky lighting situations

The camera takes a series of images firstly what it thinks is the correct exposure then a number of other images slightly over or under exposed.

Bracketing increases you chance of getting the perfect exposure.

Ref The Digital Photography Book by Scott Kelby. ISbn 0-321-47404X

A further website I read called the Ultimate Photo Guide said “ Remember pixels are cheap, so experiment with bracketing and take lots of shots.“

Later it adds ” your first priority is making sure you get the shot, so bracket all the time, every time, to make sure you get the critical shot“

I can see how this could make me a little lazy, so for now, as I take my images I will try to get the correct exposure myself. Of course if the image was time critical then I could switch the bracketing on.

Well here are the images that I took. I set my camera to the following:-

What I have done is to take a series of five images. I will post the metered image first and then for each one I will create a poster made up of the five images that the camera has taken.

First Image

Image taken of a bike outside a shop. There are shadows , reflections and glass in the image. It will be interesting to see what the results are.

For this image I like the metered image and the image 1 stop lighter.

As Metered image 2

Taken in a High Street, Lots of Sun, shadow and a contrast between the ladies clothes.

In this image the two darker images lack detail, the metered image is the one I would choose.

As Metered Image 3

A Shot I captured of a group of cyclists in West Street. Lots of light and shadow. Some nice reds on the jackets.

On this image I like the metered shot but also the shot 1 stop darker. I like the deeper red on the guys jacket/hat. There is also greater detail on the wheel

As Metered Image 4

Taken in a High Street in Surrey. Again lots of Glass but apart from the green Ball , not much colour

Again on this image I liked the metered image, and the image 1 stop darker.

As Metered Image 5

Taken at an April BBQ. Sun, Shadow, some bright colours.

Clearly on this image the darkest image is poor, I have to say on this image I like the metered shot.

Following my research mentioned below I started off by looking at the term exposure, in Photo School by Michael Freeman he states that it is ” the amount of light reaching a film emulsion , being the product of time and intensity.”

Later on page 40 of the same book he states that there is no such thing as a correct exposure. If you, the photographer want an image darker or lighter than you have to interpret the meter reading accordingly.

So with the above in mind I set off to capture a number of images. With each one I let the camera chose the what it thought would be the correct exposure then I took two further shots one of which showed as over exposed and a second that the camera showed as under exposed.

Over Exposed

This image was taken outside a ladies shop in Surrey, there are always interesting displays, according to my wife. The dress to the right of the door is blown out and you can not see any detail.

As you can see the sun was shining on the shop front and this has effected the reading of the camera as I took the reading from the shadow area by the bike.

Under exposed

This under exposed image was taken straight after by letting the camera focus on the dress (in bright sunshine) the camera has under exposed the shot. The detail in the window is missing as is the bottom of the shot.

Over Exposed

These flowers and the bird were also outside a shop. The sun was again shining straight as the shop as it was about 1300hrs. Again i forced the camera to overexpose the shot. The detail in the white flowers is almost gone as is the detail of the bird’s head.

Under Exposed

This image although darker has exactly the same problems lack of detail, more so in the red flowers this time. Again the bottom of the image is also missing.

Over Exposed

This image , taken of the front of a church, is clearly over exposed. The detail in the stone is missing and the roof tiles are not black as they should be.

Under Exposed

This image shows how much more detail can be obtained by correct exposure. Even though this image is very dark you can see more detail in the stone walls. Similar problems can be seen with the detail on the edges of the images missing.

Under Exposed

I took this image as I wanted to get a close-up of an image that contained shadow. I wanted to see what effect the under/over exposure would have on the shadow from each of the lights and the headlight itself.

Here you can see the shadows are clear and there is a bit of reflecting in the back of the bulb.

Over Exposed

Of all the images taken these two are the most similar you can see the same shadow although the colour is not a deep. The body work of the Land Rover is blown out as is the detail of the lights.

Conclusion

As I reviewed each of the images above, although each one of them would be considered to be of a poor quality in relation to exposure, is that there is some detail in each one of them. If you added both of the images together to create a single image then there would be a chance that the image would be usable. I think that this is how HDR images are done. See example below.

–4 stops

–2 stops

+2 stops

+4 stops

Merged to HDR

As you can see the results are very good.

Well these are my images for part one of this section. I have read some interesting notes by various photographers and seen some great image son the OCA Blog.

I have completed Part two of this exercise and will post my blog in the next few days

As it says in the first paragraph of this section Light is the raw material of photography. Even though many thing have changed in photography since Mr Henry Fox Talbot discovered the basis of photography in the 1830’s the processes are really the same today. Cameras have got smaller and more advanced and we have changed from film to digital but we still need to get light into the camera through a lens.

It is the amount of light that enters the camera that is important. There are of course many methods in use to regulate this, from the Waterhouse stop (a disc with a hole in the centre first used in the 1950’s) . See Below

WATERHOUSE STOPS

CAMERA WITH WATERHOUSE STOPS

To the modern metal irises in say a Nikon or Cannon Lens.

Iris

According to David Bailey …

” Light is the tool of the photographer and he must master it before he can call himself a craftsman”

Understanding the quality of light will not only help you take better photographs that are correctly exposed but will help you add atmosphere to each of your shots.

People say that setting the camera to automatic will allow it to make all the correct decisions for you , if only this were the case. As in the words of Bryan Peterson ” Operating in manual exposure mode is empowering”

I have been away for three weeks on holiday with my wife, in rural Devon, No phone signal resulted in me not having a laptop so it was back to the old methods! I purchased a couple of books and set about doing research on lighting and general photography topics.

I also set about taking images for future projects which was great fun.

Whilst driving to Cornwall one day I managed to get a phone signal and Mr Taylor’s report for my last assignment arrived, I read it as my wife looked for a place to get a Devon Cream Tea.

I have to say after I read it I was really pleased, especially as I thought that this was one of the hardest assignments so far.

Mr Taylor thought that some of the images could be improved on firstly my image of the London Eye, he said that I needed more blue in the sky.

I think that this image may be better:-

London Eye

There is obviously more blue in the background and I think that the orange stands out really well.

A further image of the cyclist with what I thought was a light green jacket, was not up to standard, I will be out over the next few days to get a cyclist on a red bike with a green jacket. I found this image hard to get so I can see me spending a few hours at the same roundabout!

The red and orange on the train I thought was a good image but do they clash or are they similar, I will be on the lookout for another image to show these colours.

I knew that this next image of the Fedex truck was not one of my best and Mr Taylor’s points are spot on.

The next image of the life belt showed Red and Yellow, I am going to go back and take further images of this to see if I can improve the shot.

I have cropped the next image as advised, what do you think?

Violet and Green

It really does look better, don’t you think.

I did not capture a lot more of the area surrounding the litter bin, so I can only add this image

Yellow on Green

After reviewing my report and upon checking the images again once they arrived from Mr Taylor I was pleased that I appear to be making progress.